South Yorkshire police boss renews call for 'dangerous' smart motorways to be scrapped

Dr Alan Billings repeated his plea yesterday, with work to improve the safety of the stretch of the M1 smart motorway near Sheffield to be carried out this week.

Despite Highways England installing new radar technology to detect stranded vehicles on the motorway network, Dr Billings insists smart motorways – which do not have a hard shoulder – remain unsafe.

He recently wrote to Transport Secretary Grant Shapps to raise his concerns after an inquest into the deaths of two men in a smart motorway collision near Meadowhall ruled that the lack of a hard shoulder contributed to their deaths.

Jason Mercer, aged 44, from Rotherham and Alexandru Murgeanu, 22, from Mansfield, were killed when a lorry driven by 40-year-old Prezemyslaw Szuba crashed into their vehicles after they stopped to exchange details following a minor collision.

Dr Billings said: “While I welcome any improvements that will make this stretch of motorway safer, my view remains that all lanes running smart motorways are inherently dangerous and should be abandoned.

“Even with this Stopped Vehicle Detection Technology, there remains a time lapse between the technology picking up that a vehicle has stopped, relaying this to the control room and for the operator to close the live lane. This still leaves a stranded motorist and any passengers at risk of further incident.

“This stretch of the M1 is extremely busy and we know too well that it only takes a matter of seconds for an incident to occur and for lives to be lost.”

He added: “Motorists should be able to travel safely with the peace of mind that they will be safe should they break down or be involved in a collision.

“Putting this technology in place after the motorway has been running for some time suggests to me that the government and Highways England realise there is a serious issue with safety.

“Stopped Vehicle Detection may reduce the risk of operators not seeing on CCTV screens that a vehicle is stationary, but it does not resolve the basic issue of a vehicle breaking down in a live lane.”